


Around the World

by city_bright



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 03:23:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20302654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/city_bright/pseuds/city_bright
Summary: Just a little something about Danny's trip to India during Best Man and While I Was Sleeping.





	Around the World

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Calum Scott's cover of Around The World. Please don't sue me for the title lol. And thanks Four Weddings and A Funeral, and Mindy Kaling, YET AGAIN, for the feels lol.

Mindy turned away from him in their bed, and he felt the invisible wall go up between them. He quietly sighed, resting his cheek on the inside of his palm, mentally reconfiguring puzzle pieces in his head to make some sense out of everything. Who knew an event to celebrate bringing a child into this world could turn into a groundbreaking discussion of opposing marriage views with the mother of his child. He glanced at her sleeping by his side and at the built crib in the corner, and an idea clicked in his mind.

He reached for his phone on his nightstand and began to research flight options from New York to Mumbai. He checked the time - 11:48 pm - and tried to find the earliest flight he could catch, all the while texting Rishi for his help in getting his parents’ address. He glazed over the “holla at ya boy” greeting to the lengthy Khar West, Mumbai address. With a 7 am flight booked and an alarm set for 4 am, he removed his reading glasses and placed them and his phone back on the nightstand. He settled into bed, turning to face her back as he pulled the comforter over his shoulder.

She felt so far away. He failed her in ways he didn't know how to really fix, except to go to India, which wasn’t a fail-safe plan, he has now realized. But he knew he had to go to find whatever it is he needed to find that will make him feel okay again about marriage and about commitment because maybe his mom was right. Maybe it wasn’t marriage itself, but the people they chose to do it with, and he was already more certain about Mindy than he had ever been about Christina. But maybe he was blind then, or blind now, he couldn’t tell. But hopefully, this trip will make him see again because marriage felt like a very real thing Mindy would leave him for, which was terrifying.

So he woke up before the sun, packed a small carry on, and sneaked away to catch his flight. A sense of determination fueled him all the way to his seat on the plane, but nearly a whole day’s worth of traveling ahead of him was unsettling and not conducive to staying calm amidst his mild panic of trying to fix yet another thing he did wrong by her.

He remembered dreaming about the day that he could spend the rest of his life with her and have kids with her, especially on that evening she spent the night at his apartment after she misplaced her bag. Holding her in his arms that night felt like Christmas morning, and seeing her smile while talking about their imaginary child, as far away as it felt at the time, was something he knew he would spend the rest of his life chasing after. And now he’s living the very life he wanted, but then he read her diary, and all of a sudden, marriage felt like a daunting prospect that makes him want to break out in hives.

And he loves her, so much so that it consumes him whole, which, in some twisted way, seemed obsolete and unimportant if he wasn’t willing to write his love on a piece of paper for her. And that felt even more trivial because signing his name next to hers shouldn’t be so intimidating. He so badly wants to be that man for Mindy, and if he has to travel around the world to get there, then so be it.

He made a note to pack a small toiletry bag with a disposable razor to shave the beard Mindy pointedly mentioned to remove, prior to meeting her parents. With a couple of hours left to go before he reached Delhi for a layover, he entered the vacant lavatory and came face to face with himself for what felt like the first time. He ran his fingers against the rough stubble on his chin and sighed, coming to terms with what he’s about to embark on, again, for the 14th time during this flight. It occurred to him that their relationship somehow transcended beyond New York, where he first fell in love with her and where Mindy dubbed the most romantic city on earth. It was a flight from Los Angeles did he finally kiss her, and he was willing to move to San Francisco to be with her, and now he was on his way to Mumbai to find whatever hope he had lost along the way. He smiled at the thought of all the ridiculous paths their relationship had taken over the years, which he admits were oftentimes caused by him, and wondered if they would ever walk in a straight line. But when he finally met her parents, clean-shaven face-to-face, to only go through a binder full of potential male suitors on laminated pages, he came to the realization that they wouldn’t be quite Mindy and Danny if they weren’t just a little bit crazy.

But seeing the example Mindy’s parents set for her, he realized why marriage was so important to her and what she imagined for herself and for them. If he had even a fraction of this growing up, he was sure he would turn out differently. Sonu and Tarun were partners in every sense of the word - supportive, playful, tenacious and confident in their love for each other - and he could so clearly see Mindy’s personality in theirs and even bits and pieces of her parents in him and Mindy.

But what stood out to him was the fact that her parents literally met on their wedding day. He was already suspicious of any new stranger in life, let alone being legally bound to one for his whole life, and they weren't at all bitter about it. They’ve embraced the situation and each other to somehow manage to be in love for the past 40 years. He thought that kind of love only existed in the movies, but seeing, first hand, how special it was was almost an out of body experience. He really had been that blind, and to imagine depriving not only Mindy but also himself and their unborn child of the possibility of this kind of life was unfair. And for all the mistakes he made, he knew this one would be, at least, the one thing he did right, and with Sonu's and Tarun's blessing, he returned home to the woman he loves.

He found her almost exactly as how he left her, resting peacefully with a protective hand over the swell of her stomach of their son. He quietly set aside the small luggage at the bedroom door and sat on the edge of their bed when she suddenly woke, face flushed with warmth from whatever tragic dream she had that left her grasping his arm and telling him about an alternate life that was neither his nor hers. She reassured him that she just wants to be with him, married or not. That gave him a little relief for what he was about to do, but he hoped she would say yes anyway because if her parents can meet at the altar and still be in love after all this time, then maybe he had it all wrong. He asked her to marry him, and with her breathy yes and eyes sparkling as much as the diamond ring in his hand, he, for once, would like to be very wrong.

_No more will I go all around the world, for I have found my world in you._


End file.
